


The man I used to be

by lakester



Category: Snooker RPF
Genre: Accidental Time Travel, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-02
Updated: 2011-01-02
Packaged: 2017-10-14 08:38:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/147403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lakester/pseuds/lakester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Winning the UK championship. It's just like it was ten years ago. Except for how for John Higgins it really really is. Now is a very fluid concept, more so than he'd ever thought it was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The man I used to be

John doesn't try to tell himself that it's the glare of the camera flashes that makes his eyes water, as he blinks hard with one hand on the trophy and the other in Denise's. He breaks into a smile as he squeezes her hand and thinks the old saw about laughing and crying hasn't been this true for him for a long time. Even with a gloomy looking Mark Williams, waistcoat hanging undone and standing by his seat as he stares at the table. John can see the shots replaying behind those shadowed eyes, though he can't tell if this time they're going right or wrong from Mark's face. In the end though, he supposes it doesn't matter.

"One last shot of the two players," calls a voice from behind a lens.

"I'll be in the lounge," Denise says, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

John rests the trophy against the green baize, running a thumb down to the cool blank space. "Hey," Mark says, and John instinctively wants to straighten his spine. He wants to apologise, he wants to laugh, he wants to sleep, he wants to hang onto someone before he floats away, he wants to do _some_ thing. He knows Mark wouldn't want any of that so he contents himself with a smile, a "Good game, out there, no?" and a slow handshake for the cameras.

Mark shrugs. "Had too many chances," he says quietly. "I should have took them. Anyway."

John nods, tucking the silverware under his arm as they head for the arena exits and pushes aside the canvas. Walking away with the trophy in one hand and his cue case in the other isn't strictly against or in the rules, but he just wants to hold onto it a little while longer. Mark ducks under the doorway, as if the ceiling might jump down the few feet it would need to clout him round the back of the head.

Underfoot the fake wooden tiling springs back, making the journey back to the dressing rooms one of squeaks and stutters. John has never figured out what all the cables involved in televising snooker are supposed to be for, but by the time he reaches his door and Mark his, he's quite sure they agree they're actually there to entrap the unwary player. They don't run into a tangled Ronnie who never found his way back to the table after the first round, but John wouldn't be surprised if they did. Now if it was Stephen he would be. That man would chew his leg off to get to a match, he thinks, and quickens his step, pushing open the door with a "Night," to Mark who's doing the same out of the corner of his eye.

He sinks down onto the awkward plastic chair by the door and drops cue case and trophy - carefully - onto the floor in front of him, letting out a slow sigh. His mobile's stubbornly empty of messages - pulled out of his coat pocket before he tugs it on over his playing gear. Normally, he'd change, but he's only going back to the hotel. Loosening his tie, John takes a quick look into the mirror hung on the wall as there's a knock at the door.

"Hello," he calls, but whoever's the other side has used up all their effort on the first shot and there's no answer. "Ah, well," he says under a breath, but not a yawn.

There's no-one there. Or further up or down the corridor as he looks this way and then that. John shakes his head, and would say something about daft kids, if he didn't think that would make him sound old and if he hadn't had more than one conversation where he was the only one present in the last six months. There are only so many ways you can try to explain yourself to blank space, pretending it's the men you've spent years of your life with but now daren't call and he'd used up the threads of his imagination guessing at their reactions.

So, John doesn't talk to himself too much these days.

He picks up his things, and - hoping Denise has thought to call a taxi - loops his fingers around the edge of the cup, and...

Huh? John turns the trophy, frowning at the base. Did they stop etching names on it so long ago then? He turn it round again, tilting it to catch the low light. There's definitely no names after Mark's in ninety-nine. And there's space enough for years more.

Maybe there's a newer replica, and this is the older one brought out again. No that it matters, it's the title not the silver it's engraved on that's the thing, and not even that so much as the playing and playing well. Well, playing well sometimes, he admits as he steps into the corridor that's someone has turned the lights out of.

John squints up looking for a - okay, a lot - of broken lightbulbs. It's dim enough that he can't make out the ceiling for sure. He turns and gets a few metres up the corridor trailing his trophy against the wall, before it dawns on him that Mark's probably still in his room and as clumsy as he his away from the table when the lights are all on, John doesn't like to think of the entertaining ways he'd find to injure himself before getting to somewhere he could see. Saying somethng that sounds perilously close to swearing - but isn't, hazard of trying to raise kids that won't embarrass you in public - John turns back.

A few minutes later and John's found his way out the localised power outage. He hasn't found Mark, the dressing room being empty and John having barked his shins enough looking for him. There's something off though. He must have gotten turned around, because the carpets a different colour and there was a lot more glass, the building was airier. He must have ended up round the back, he thinks, reaching for his mobile to let Denise know where he is. No signal.

Light rain is shifting under streetlights outside. That's not important at the moment. Nor is the dark blue car at the foot of the steps, though John'll notice that in a minute. Right now, though, right now he's struck by the fact that the building he just walked out of looks nothing like the one he walked into twelve hours ago. And he's never been the most observant apple in the bunch but he'd have noticed if the car park had been surrounded by concrete and roads rather than the green parkland he was sure Telford had had a few hours back. He'd trekked enough into the conference centre on his shoes.

John has half a mind to turn right round, walk back into the building and try coming back out again, or maybe, he thinks, he hit his head on something hard and instead of seeing little cartoon bluebirds tweeting around his head he can see Ronnie O'Sullivan waving his arms from the bottom of the steps and yelling. He hopes he started hallucinating after the match.

"Are you coming or not?" Ronnie calls up expectantly.

There's not really an answer to that. At least, not one that John can think of, so he makes his way down the steps carefully - not that he's expecting them to disappear but...

Ronnie snorts at the tight grip he has on the trophy. "I don't think Mark's gonna mug you for it," he says, tossing cues and trophy in the footwell of the car before giving John a shove in the general direction of the back seat.

"Hey," says John, once he finds his footing - seating - whatever, "Not all of us have so many of those as you."

"Eh," Ronnie shrugs. Not that John can tell with the seat between them, but it sounds like a shrug. A lot of Ronnie's sentences do. "If you can't count up to two already, you're going to be fun by the end of the night."

The words run off John with the ease of long practice. He's noticed something else and asks, "Ronnie, what have you done to your hair?"

He's ensconced in the corner of a hotel bar - and lucky that Ronnie was driving, John isn't sure how the conversation in which he claimed not to remember the hotel he'd left that afternoon would go. Ronnie's been snickering and messing up his hair since they left the car. The drink in front of him's untouched, though John's really starting to wish that it wasn't.

He's seen a lot of familiar faces - Stephen popping in to look for Mark, Ebdon and Lee in a corner arguing with a slot machine video game, a brightly colour-haired Stevens in a more shadowy corner very definitely not arguing with whoever's the blond he's with. And ones he'd thought he'd forgotten, he thinks, as his eyes drift over Ronnie involved in some kind of drinking game with Hann. Hann looks involved anyway, if the flailing of his arms is anything to go by, and if there's a twang of disappointment John squashes it firmly down.

"Congratulations," are slurred by an approaching figure and John turns as Ken drops into the seat opposite, keeping his drink level. "On another UK."

"Thanks," John says, with a glimmer of hope that fades as Ken leans forward into the light. Another younger rival and friend. He's no daft - or at least no more than usual - and he's no time traveller either, but he's starting to think that one of those must not be so true anymore. In the movies it'd be right about now would be when the robots come crashing in, and he looks hopefully at the door, but no.

He supposes that now would be the time to buy a winning lottery ticket, or to sit very quietly and try not to kill butterflies. But if that's the case - and if there isn't a past - a present - a another John around to make his own mistakes then he's already changing things by not shoving his tongue down Ronnie's throat in an attempt drown his marriage related fears in a haze of drink and sex. Honestly, though, he couldn't care less about paradoxes.

Mostly, right now, John wants to go home. He's just not sure how to get there.


End file.
